ISLAMABAD: Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan Chief Sirajul Haque, Friday, while stressing the need for full Islamisation of the financial system of the country said that the interest-based system is the real problem.
Speaking at the Seeratun Nabi (SAWW) conference in Islamabad, he said that the circulation of wealth is the basis of the Islamic economic system for which many mandatory and optional tools are available, while capitalism is based on the concentration of wealth as a result economic disparity is growing rapidly across the modern world.
Haq said that the Islamic economic system is based on the circulation of money, no country can run on the basis of debts, the rulers have no action plan to get rid of debts. They chase the debtor countries with their sticks, and so far, Pakistan has borrowed 23 times from the IMF.
Tell me what has improved, the rulers eat themselves after taking loans and made the poor scapegoats in the last five years. Five finance ministers went to the door of the IMF immediately after taking the oath, when a friendly Arab country talked about giving two billion in trust, the rulers were not happy.
Haq said that the ongoing political and social unrest in the country is a direct consequence of external powers’ interference in Pakistan’s matters. The rulers are captive to their desires and they have totally ignored the plight of the poor people.
He said that on the one side the people are facing the worst kind of inflation, poverty, and unemployment, and on the other side, rulers are playing politics of games of thrones.
Haq said that the incompetent rulers have forced the people to spend days for receiving one wheat flour bag free, while only two percent elite class is controlling 98 percent of the national resources, adding that the declared assets of only 18 filthy rich people are four thousand billion.
He said that rulers are occupying different positions just to implement the order of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) while turning totally a blind eye to the problems being faced by the people. He said that joint efforts are needed to sail the country out of the mess created in the past 75 years, otherwise, the ruling elite is all set to turn Pakistan into Syria and Libya.
The only way to bring peace, development, and prosperity and to get rid of the IMF was the collective struggle. Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and ensuring Sharia laws here to make it a model Islamic state in the world, but in the past 75 years, the promise was never fulfilled even for a single day.
He said that the British colonial laws especially the Ribba Act 1839 is still being implemented even in 2023. Criticising the current increase in interest rate by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), he said that the day Senate of Pakistan passed a resolution against interest-based banking, the SBP increased the interest rate.
He said that Pakistan within years can be turnaround into a developed nation by eliminating profiteering, corruption, introducing good governance, and fair distribution of resources under competent and honest leadership.
He said that since the independence all the experiments in the country have failed,and the people have seen the 35-year period of dictators and also tested the power of the so-called democratic parties, now only the Islamic system can pull the boat out of the vortex and only Jamaat-e-Islami can give this system to the country.
He called upon the people to stand up for their right and reject the tested parties who have brought no sigh of relief for the people.
He said that the tyrannical rulers imposed on the nation deprived the country of its ideology, weakened its institutions, today, all the national institutions are in loss, decisions are being made to sell them at high prices.
If the incompetent rulers cannot improve, they should go home. They deceived the people with false slogans and promises. Their faces and incompetence have become apparent and their performance has come before everyone, the nation should reject these oppressors in the next election.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023